Re: Lojban ML: Syllogism and sophism

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>>and somewhere around there my mind senses an impending infinite loop and
>stops
>>trying.
>
>Your mind is right, because {le ka ce'u blanu} by itself doesn't work
>as a scale, so you'd have to use {le ka ce'uxipa blanu sela'u ce'uxire} and
>then if you expand {sela'u} like you did before you do enter into an
>infinite loop.

In my mind, a scale needs units and a property being measured (not a thing
- things aren't measured, but rather it is properties of the thing that are
measured).

>But then you can't ever use {sela'u} at all. For any bridi that uses it
>you'd
>run into the same problem:
>
>            i broda sela'u ko'a
>            i broda gi'e klani ko'a ma
>            i broda gi'e klani ko'a le ka ce'uxipa broda sela'u ce'uxire
>
>and you're in the loop again.

Since I see klani as being a measurement of properties, then broda sela'u  tu'o
implies that leni broda cu klani tu'o da, that is that tu'o is a measurement
of the RELATIONSHIP broda on some unit scale.  If it is a measurement of
one sumti of the relationship, then it should be attached to that sumti with
pe/ne and not left as a modal on the main bridi.

If it is attached to the main bridi as in>>>        la djan cenba le ka ce'u
 blanu sela'u makau
>>>        John changes in the degree to which he is blue.

then I see it the sela'u as implying that it is the BRIDI that goes in the
x1 of klani, in an appropriate abstraction.  The book might even actually
say this %^).

 (I don't actually see it - John was trying real hard to avoid English bias
on pg 204, and seems to inadvertently left out clarifying just what the d
distinction is between a moda in a relative phrase vs at the main bridi level.
Elsewhere he says that one has to determine the "other places" of the implied
bridi of a modal "from context", but the context at the bridi level is that
usually the bridi as a whole fits somewhere in the place structure, whereas
in a relative phrase, usually the sumti alone fits into the  modal's implied
place structure.)

>The way out is to not choose {le ka ce'uxipa broda sela'u ce'uxire} as
>the scale for the {sela'u}. Choosing that as the scale is indeed going
>in circles. In the example above, we need a scale to measure blueness.
>--More--
>I don't know what that might be, but if you think that {ni blanu} is
>sensible, then you can use as the scale whatever you would use as
>the x2 of {ni blanu kei}. Let's call that ko'a. Then we have:
>
>        la djan cenba le ka ce'u blanu sela'u makau tela'u ko'a
>        John changes in the degree to which he is blue in scale koha.

At which point you might have defined what I think leni blanu means with
an open slot, except that the sela'u and tela'u are moved out of the
blanu place to be places of ni ce'u blanu.

Otherwise per the above, it perhaps should be
leka ce'u pe sala'u makau zi'e pe tela'u ko'a cu blanu

(Since blanu has only one place, it is hard to see the difference
between attaching thequantitiy to the place vs to the bridi.  This might
have been clearer with some other selbri - but maybe not since English
conveys these things using identical grammar.)

> >If I say that
>>leka la djan blanu cu cenba, then given that blanu is a one place predicate
>>the x2 is probably something like  leka la djan cenba do'ekaumakau
>
>You must mean {blanu} instead of that last {cenba}.

Yes

>How do you interpret
>a property with no open slots?

I think I discussed that in the first half of my response a few hours ago.

>Does anyone or anything have that
>property? For example, can I say:
>
>            la djan cu ckaji le ka la alis prami la djim
>            John has the property of Alice loving Jim.
>
>I suppose that is not right.

I agree.  If there is no open slot, then it is not a property of John or of
any "thing" - if it was, you would expect a ce'u to show how it fit in.

But le ka la alis prami la djim
is an aspect of the generalized"leka prami" which we would describe in
Eng;ish as "Love" with a capital "L".  It is also a property of the set
la alis. ce la djim and perhaps of larger sets of which that is a subset.
(I may be sloppy in using "set" here and need "mass" or set-in-extention
or whatever to be proper.)

>            la djan cu ckaji le ka la alis prami la djim
>            John has the property of Alice loving Jim.
>
>I suppose that is not right. So, who has that property, only Alice and Jim?
>But how about the property {le ka la alis prami la djim noi bruna la djan}.
>Is that a different property?

I don't see that inserting a noi clause changes a bridi, and hence not the
property abstraction of that bridi.  But I would have expected
.... noi bruna ce'u

John has the property of brother-of-Jim-by-Alice-belovedness.
Nope this is one Lojbanic phrase that does not translate well into English
 without extensive expansion %^)

>And in what you propose:
>
>        le ka la djan blanu cu cenba le ka la djan blanu do'ekaumakau
>
>le se cenba is not a property of le cenba. That does not agree with
>the use of {cenba} in the refgram examples.
  I couldn't find cenba in the index, so I don't know what examples you were
referring to.  But unless there is an example with commentary on the places
it will be hard to know what the refgrammar is saying or implying (if anything).
For the mopst part the refgrammar is NOT attempting to prescribe meaning or
usage of various brivla, though it may have  that effect if a comment
indicates that a praticular meaning is presumed in order to elicit the
indicated grammatical effect.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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